Wind's Nocturne
by Acacia Carter
Summary: There is magic the likes of which humans can barely remember and seldom experience. There is, however, a handful of men privileged enough to experience a part of it: the Dryad's Consorts.


I've been watching him for some time now.

He's not a fool. He builds no fires, he hews no limbs from the trees. He is careful where he places his feet. Though the berries are tempting in this late summer heat, he does not indulge.

Mostly he sits and sketches for hours at a time. He has not bathed that I have been able to see - rather disappointing, really - but he always emerges from his tent looking well-groomed.

He wears a wand at his hip. It feels like cherry, from a tree ancient enough to have little use for counting seasons any longer. When he ventures close enough, I can feel his magic. - and something else, something that hums within him in a gentle harmony with the susurrus of the forest. He knows this forest and its ways, loves it deeply. Loves me, even if he doesn't know it yet.

Oh, yes. He will do very nicely. Now I just need to catch him.

To his credit, he does nothing more than flinch and look around as the morning glory tendrils wind their way about his body, trapping him as he rests on his crossed heels before a bank of moss. I'm a little disappointed; I had been hoping for more of a chase. He finally spies me as I descend to the lower branches of the trees, and an expression almost of recognition softens his features.

"Ah. I was wondering if you'd come down to see me." He licks his lips; he's nervous. "I don't mean to trespass."

Oh, he even knows the formalities. Someone has taught him well. It's impossible to keep the pleasure from my voice. "You know who I am."

"Well, I don't know who, exactly," he stammers as I shimmy down the trunk. "That is, I - I know _of_ you. Of you and your, erm, your sisters."

"My sisters?" I see the knot of his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, the vines twining more tightly about him in response to my narrowed eyes. "Have one of them already tried to steal you?"

His breath hitches. "What? No, I've never - you're the first Dryad I've ever seen. I promise."

"Oh. Well, if you promise." I let the vines loosen. He visibly relaxes as they do so, but tenses up again when I take several steps nearer and kneel down beside him, reaching out a hand to run it through his sandy brown hair.

"I - I didn't trespass," he finally points out, his voice shaking. "I marked which tree was yours. I didn't go near it. I haven't lit any fires, either, and -"

"Shhh." I lay a finger across his lips and I think he falls quiet out of surprise more than anything. "You haven't trespassed. I'm not going to kill you, silly manling."

"Oh. Good." He shifts in the confines I've fashioned for him and I nod in appreciation as the muscles of his arms and chest flex. "You - you wouldn't consider letting me go then, would you?" he asks hopefully.

"No," I say dreamily as I trail a finger along the edge of his ear. "You have nice ears."

"Thanks. Um. Why not?"

I ignore his question. He knows about trespassing and fire. He knows perfectly well why I'm not going to let him go. "What shall I call you, my manling?"

His eyes grow wide; they are the colour of new lichen. "Oh no. No, you've got it all - I mean, I'm flattered, I really am, but -"

Laying my hand across his mouth stops his babbling. "You talk too much."

I can feel his heart beat against my fingertips as I trace the lines of his neck. It's racing. He's scared. I hide a smile. It has been a very long time since a man has been properly scared of me. "Hush," I whisper into his ear. "Listen." The skin of his eyelids is smooth as the blossoms of the morning glory vines as I slide his eyes shut. His lashes flutter as I pull my hand away, but he does not open his eyes again. "Listen," I say again.

The wind rustles the leaves above in a complex swirl of ever-changing melody. Most only hear the raspy murmur, but, fingers still grazing his pulse point, I could feel him as he truly listens and hears the song beneath the mundane noise of the forest. His blood thrums in tune with it, and his breathing grows slow and shallow.

"You yearn to be a part of it. Your heart beats to its rhythm. You've studied this magic. You think you know it. And yet, you haven't the dimmest glimmer of comprehension."

His chin dips in the barest of nods, eyes still closed.

"I can make you part of it, for a little while. I can make you understand."

There is a longer pause this time before he nods again. He can't see my smile. I knew I'd be able to tempt him with that.

"What shall I call you, my manling?"

He licks his lips. "Neville."

I cannot deny the tiny thrill of victory. "I am called Melea."

And with the exchange of our calling names, magic older than anything on earth binds us to one another. It is magic so profound that even those humans who live their whole lives without touching magic are subject to its power. And they notice, too - they cannot but feel the jolt of that magic when they hear their name on the lips of another, friend or foe, lover or enemy. It is a magic so deeply engrained that most do not even consider it magic.

Neville knows. And when I murmur his name against his lips he resists no longer.

The vines become unnecessary to keep him here.

* * *

A human is lovely to have around for a little while, particularly a human male, but before long they become nuisances. He is restless and irritable and though he's become rather skilful as a lover, even one with the most fervent of appetites cannot fill all the hours of the day with that particular activity.

I must admit, though, that I do not think I will ever tire of seeing him in an unguarded state, eyes shut, simply listening to the forest, taking in the new awareness I have granted him. It's a much more subdued bliss, understated, but I can tell it moves him just as much or maybe more than our bouts of passion do.

Once I catch him studying a foxglove seedling so intently that I am amazed his eyes don't cross. He feels my eyes on him and he shifts, propping himself up on one elbow. "A Potioneer could tell you all the properties of this plant in all its preparations. A Herbologist could tell you its entire life cycle, how best to grow it for optimal magical output, or where you're likely to find the best soil for a bed. But it's all just words, isn't it? No one actually gets it." His eyes go soft. "Not like this."

I've changed him, I think, changed him in a very profound way.

The moon has waned from a bright gibbous to the slimmest crescent when he finally asks what I know must have been on his mind since his first acquiescence. "When are you going to let me go?"

"I'm not," I reply calmly, glancing sidelong to study his reaction. It's slight: the tiniest tightening of his jaw, a nearly imperceptible twitch of his brow. He expected that answer.

Still, he presses on. "Melea, this has been - it's been phenomenal. I can't even... Words are useless. But I need to go home. I have friends, a job -"

He stops when I wave my hand dismissively. "This is your home now. I'm your friend."

"Of course you're my friend," he says quickly. "But I need my other friends, too. My human friends." He takes a breath. "I know that you're not supposed to let me go, because I can - reveal secrets. Or something. But I won't say anything. I won't even tell anyone I saw you."

My laughter confuses him, I can tell. "Oh, my pet. That's not why we don't let your folk go." I run a hand through his hair, a familiar gesture that he relaxes into. "If I let you go, I relinquish my claim on you, and my sisters can take you and I won't have any right to try and steal you back. I can't have that."

"And what if I ran away?"

"You won't." I nibble at his earlobe. He likes this. He'll soon forget about this thread of conversation.

But he pulls away. More than that, he pushes at me. It is gentle, more a pressure on my shoulder than a shove, but it is jarring. "I will, if I have to. I don't belong here."

I cock my head at him. "Don't you?" I gesture around us and I see his eyes grow distant, and I know he is listening to the wind's nocturne in the boughs of the tree above us, hearing not only the whispered rustle of the leaves but the simple song of each one as it murmurs to itself about sunlight and the wait for morning. I am sure I have captured him again.

"No. I don't." He shakes his head, and it is as though a spell is broken. I stare in disbelief. "I want to. Stars know I want to. But this isn't what I am. I can't spend my life pretending."

I don't want to tell him this, but it seems only fair to warn him. "You do know it is customary for us to kill our runaways. I would not enjoy doing that."

He does not baulk. I have not seen this flinty backbone in him before. "That's assuming you can catch me."

His obstinacy is starting to stir a cloud of irritation in my belly. "There is not a living thing in this forest that does not obey me. Exactly how far do you think you would get?"

"You forget that I have magic that allows me to just reappear elsewhere. I wouldn't have to take a single step."

I am matching him stare for dark, thundering stare. How _dare_ he? How dare he threaten to deprive me of what I have rightfully claimed? I have observed every tradition, and he has accepted every term. He thinks to do away with centuries of precedent? "I don't want to kill you," I say in a low voice.

"Then don't."

"You think it is that simple?" He does flinch now, at my tone, which holds all the promise of a billowing forest fire. "You are mine. You shan't leave unless I will it. I did not think you ignorant of the pact you'd made."

"I'm not ignorant." He looks offended. "I knew full well what I was agreeing to." He licks his lips, a habit of his when he is unsure of himself. "But - what if I came back?"

His suggestion brings me up short. I can do nothing but stare at him. He takes this as an invitation to keep talking. He talks _so much_. "I'd still be yours. And if you ever summoned me, I'd come. You wouldn't be letting me escape because escapees don't exactly come back to visit, do they? But you wouldn't be letting me go because I'd be obligated to return, at least sometimes."

"And how am I to know you will return?" I demand. "You can't have that many years left to you; how can you guarantee that you won't die before you remember to come back?"

He laughs at this, making me bristle - it is a legitimate concern, and there is no reason for him to be making light of it. "I'm barely twenty. My Gran lived to a hundred and fourteen. I've got some time left."

I cannot believe I am bargaining with him like some common imp. "You would leave all this behind, then, and go back to your mundane world? You would go back to the struggle to make things fit to the words you can give them in the vain hope that someone will understand?"

He looks stricken, and he glances about him. Under the canopy and with only the slice of moon it is nearly black as pitch, but he can feel everything around him surely as he can feel his own skin. "I'd... I'd lose that, then?"

It would be so easy to lie. If I lied, he would stay. I am sure of it. He would stay and be mine, and no one could take him.

But he sounds so lost and forlorn. The thinly veiled desperation of his voice plucks at something deep within my breast. "Most, but not all. I gave you the shape, but you wrought this change in yourself. What you have made with your own mind, I cannot take away."

Perhaps he has changed me in a profound way as well. To find myself caring about a mortal creature's happiness in this way is slightly frightening - and yet, the relief that suffuses his face is like a warm salve to my heart. I try not to think about how I have just eradicated his last reason for staying. If he really does have the kind of magic to disappear as he says, there is very little I can do to keep him here.

But if that is the case...

"If you can just disappear, why haven't you?" I demand.

He looks down at his hands bashfully. "I didn't want to," he says finally. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and - well, to be honest..." Even in the darkness I can see him bite his lip. "Being a Dryad's consort is probably the fantasy of every Herbologist in the world."

He talks too much, but oh, he says such lovely things.

We lapse into silence. He knows by now to not try and fill it with words; this is a thinking silence, a silence made of all the fleeting moments of pondering and rumination.

"I would have your solemn word that you will return to me," I say slowly.

"I swear it," he replies promptly.

"Do you? Do you swear it by salt and moon and the power of your name?"

He does not hesitate. "Yes."

"And you will remain mine always?" I know I sound petulant, but I cannot help adding this to his list of promises.

He smiles and reaches out to touch my cheek. "Of course."

I ignore the pang in my chest. "Then I give you leave to wander as you will, and give you my promise that should any of my sisters try to steal you, I shall fight to protect you from them." I don't expect him to understand the gravity of this promise; indeed, he smiles as though amused. But he is, after all, only human.

After one more night in one another's arms, he takes out his wand and turns on his heel. The mulch of the forest floor swirls as he disappears with a loud _CRACK_.

I climb into my tree and allow some tears to fall. I do not know why. He is a consort, nothing more. I have had more than a dozen. There is no reason he should be special.

* * *

He has not come back to me.

* * *

It is that kind of early summer day perfect for dangling one's feet in a brook, enjoying the frenzied contentedness as the leaves stretch to their fullest to not let the slightest ray of sun go to waste. My eyelids have nearly shut for a late afternoon nap when I hear a sharp _CRACK_ echo through the trees, and feel the forest take sudden notice of a new presence.

It actually takes me the space of an entire breath before I recognise it, and then I am running as fast as my legs can take me to my tree. He has surely felt me coming, because he is leaning nonchalantly against my tree's trunk and his bashful grin is wide. He catches me in his arms and my momentum topples us both to the ground, a mess of tangled limbs and hasty kisses. It is him - subtly different in ways I cannot fathom, but him all the same.

"I almost think you missed me," he says with a laugh. He has twigs and bits of leaf in his hair from our tumbling - he's let it grow longer in the intervening seasons and it is decidedly unruly now. I comb my fingers through it, tugging gently.

"You were gone for a very long time," I say accusingly.

He coughs uncomfortably. "Well, I didn't have a lot of time away from work until winter - and you sleep during the winter, don't you? And I knew I'd want to stay longer than a few days, so I had to wait until summer holiday." He nudges my nose with his playfully. "Besides, weren't you the one saying that a hundred years isn't all that long?"

"It's not, when you're not waiting for something," I reply. "I can be patient as a stone, unless I'm waiting for you."

"Well. I'm here now. And I have a lot to tell you."

"You talk too much."

We do not speak again for some time. I am sprawled on my back; he is propped up on one elbow on his side, trailing his fingers along my collarbone in idle patterns. "I missed this place," he says softly. "And you, of course," he adds quickly.

"One and the same," I say lazily.

"True." He clears his throat. "So, um... I assume it didn't work?"

"Hm?"

I'd forgotten how easy it is to make him blush. "I - that is, the reason you, um, caught me in the first place. You're clearly not pregnant, but you're still alone..." He licks his lips. "I mean, there isn't any literature on the subject of Dryad reproduction, so I don't have any idea how these sorts of things work, but -"

I am going to have to teach him how not to babble all over again before it gets irritating, but for now it is charming. I chuckle, which makes him pause. "Neville, dear - you are so young."

He blinks. "Yes, well, not all of us can be five hundred."

I push myself to my feet and pull him up with me. "Come."

It is not far to where the tiny sapling - barely more than a seedling, really - is basking in one of the rare dapples of sunlight that make it to the forest floor. I drop to my knees so that we are of a height and reach out to gently cradle a leaf. "He grows quickly, but it will be many years before she stirs, and many more before she can speak."

He kneels next to me, mouth slightly open in wonder. "And she's... is she in there? Right now?"

"Slumbering very deeply, but yes."

"Mel," he says slowly, looking around at the oak trees surrounding us. "Not that it's any of my business, but..."

It is a moment before I understand what he is implying, and it draws a deep, mirthful laugh from me that makes me bend over and gasp for breath. "You greatly overestimate my appetite, my pet," I finally manage, and the palpable relief on his face fosters a whole new gale of laughter. "No. All these trees are only trees. This is the only living Dryad oak in the forest, aside from mine."

"Living?" He is nothing if not perceptive.

"They're fragile, like any other sapling." I shrug. "Not every acorn can be a tree."

His gaze is oddly protective. "Do you think," he says, "it would do any harm for me to - to cast some spells around it? To shield it? Not that I know many that will be of any help, but..."

"Neville." I try to be gentle. "A tree is a tree. If he doesn't survive, then he doesn't."

He stares at me, his incomprehension plain. "That's your daughter," he said pointedly. "My - _our_ daughter."

"She is not the first I have planted," I reply, shrugging. "And if her tree doesn't survive, she won't be the last." At the look of horror on his face, I have to remind myself that he is human, with human sensibilities towards offspring. "If it will make you happy, I see no harm in it."

Determination furrows his brows as he nods, returning his gaze to the sapling. "I'll probably have to refresh them at least once a year," he says quietly, as though to himself, before something clearly occurs to him. "Um. Would that be considered trespassing? Only it'd be awkward to be killed by my own daughter."

It is time to be gentle again, not blunt. "A Dryad is very protective of her tree." I look fondly in the direction of my own. "After all, we live only as long as he does. He is our health, our survival, our hearts. We are his soul. And you must understand... you are not her father. The tree is."

He swallows, and I know he is trying to wrap his mind around this. "But you needed me. You couldn't have - conceived, I suppose - her without me."

"Correct."

"I reckon that makes me as much her father as the tree, then, wouldn't you?" He doesn't tear his eyes from the pale green leaves as they shiver in the breeze. Does he imagine he can see her? Feel her? His awareness is not as fine-tuned as it was when he left - it will take some time for him to attain that again - but even with the sensitivity of weeks, he will never be able to detect the subtle mind of a sleeping Dryad in a sapling less than five months old.

"If the notion pleases you. But yes - I do think that once she is aware, she will consider a wizard casting spells at her tree a very aggressive gesture indeed."

He looks so crestfallen at this, as though it causes him physical pain. I'd forgotten how that face tugs at my heart. "I'm sorry," he mumbles as he stands up, leaving me on my knees by the seedling.

"I can try to teach her," I find myself saying to his retreating back. He stops. "I can't promise she'll understand - it's against our nature - but I can try."

Perhaps I won't have to re-teach him not to babble after all; he is silent for several heartbeats before simply saying, "I'd like that."

* * *

He doesn't stay for long: barely the span of a moon's cycle. He is fidgety and he asks so many questions, queries he would know the answers to if he just let himself settle down and submerge his mind in the forest once again. But no. He is so flighty, his mind skipping from one thing to the next, and I wonder if he can feel the forest around him anymore at all.

He can, of course; the way the lines of his face soften as he places a hand on a tree trunk makes it clear as day that he hasn't lost the rapport he painstakingly earned the summer before. It simply has more focus now, become more myopic, allowing him to see perfect detail in what he studies but lose the wide scope of a larger awareness.

I think he understands me, as well, at least as far as a human can understand me. He knows when his endless questioning has become irritating, or when I could not care less about his accomplishments in his world. "They think I'm some sort of Herbology genius," he says, and though I can hear the pride in his voice the significance of the statement eludes me. Why is that important? "I've told them all it's just a knack, a natural talent. I haven't breathed a word about you."

Our dalliances are not as frequent as they were before; I am no longer in season, my urgency to produce a daughter has faded, and though his ardour is strong as ever, he seems to understand the difference between purpose and pleasure. It does not surprise me when, one morning, he has packed his bag and bids me farewell.

"I don't know when I'll be able to come back again," he says, and I can hear the disappointment and even a little shame. "Summers are best, obviously, but - well, they're having me actually teach some classes this year. And I don't know how busy that will make next summer."

Even though we've grown distant as our differences become more apparent, the thought of him leaving for another indeterminate length of time freezes me to my core. "You promised," I say, trying to make it sound like a warning - but my voice quavers too much for it to be anything but a heartbroken bequest.

His eyebrows draw together in confusion and concern as he takes a step towards me, hand reaching out to brush his thumb against my cheek. It smears the single tear across my skin. "I didn't know Dryads could cry." He studies me very intently, and I close my eyes to avoid his for a moment.

I don't answer. If I can just make him stay, maybe he will lose those differences that make him so difficult to be around for longer than a few moon phases. Maybe I could find the words he so prizes to tell him that somehow he's become more than a simple consort, more than just my territory that I must protect, or maybe he could grow to understand me enough that words become unnecessary.

Maybe he has. He's looking at me differently, his bag sliding from his shoulder as though he's reconsidering leaving. "Everything I've read says that Dryads don't form emotional attachments to their consorts. That you're viciously territorial, that you consider them your - well, your property, but..." The dismay is plain on his face. "Are they wrong?" The dismay turns to horror. "Have I been horrible to you all this time?"

He sounds so bleak that I must give him an answer. "It's too painful to be fond of a consort that only lives for a fraction of our lives," I say softly. "You humans are awash in the birth and death of your loved ones. Your souls are hardy, and can withstand that agony."

"Hold on." He has let his bag slip all the way down to the ground now. "Aren't you even more in tune with the cycle of life than any human? I mean, you were so - sanguine about the survival of your daughters. And things are dying in here all the time."

I shake my head ruefully. "Do you think yourself a tree, Neville? Perhaps a sparrow? A fox?"

He looks puzzled. "No?" he ventures. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Humans are separate. You always have been. The sparrow falls to the fox, the tree grows weary and falls to nurture its younger kin. Those are their roles. What is your role?"

He blinks. "I... don't know."

"You don't have one. Your role, your entire purpose in this forest, is defined by your association with me. That is the way with all consorts, even the ones who stay. And so, when you die..."

I can tell he is struggling to understand. I wish I could call forth words as easily as he. But he has glimpsed what I speak of. He has said himself that he doesn't belong. He must know that his presence here is jarring, disruptive in the best possible way, and that his death will mean the end of something so profound that has changed me in such a way that I want to be able to find words to tell him. I want him to understand.

Instead of answering, he lowers himself to the ground, pulling me down to sit next to him. It is a long time before he speaks. "I know I promised I was yours," he says slowly. "I think now that I didn't know what I was promising. Maybe you ought to tell me before I do something stupid."

The anxiety in his voice is apparent. "You promised you would belong to no other. That is all I shall hold you to."

Nodding faintly, he licks his lips. "I... what if I want a family someday? I'll need a wife for that. A human wife."

Oh, he truly doesn't understand what he's tangled himself in. "And would this wife own you? Would your children?" Startled, he shakes his head. "You are mine. That is not a mere title of affection. You are my consort, and you _belong_ to me." Impulsively, I push him backwards; he does not expect it and he sprawls on his back. I climb atop him. "Make whatever human bonds you will, they are inconsequential compared to ours."

He looks unconvinced. I reach up to close his eyes, like I did once not so long ago, before I even knew his name. "Listen. Feel. Feel me. Feel you. Feel _us_, where we are, our place in the forest." As his breathing slows, I know he is doing just that. "Another human would not be able to feel this. You know that."

He nods, transfixed by the moment, and opens his eyes. "I'm really yours, aren't I?"

"You really are."

He stays a few days longer. It still pains me to see him go, but now I know he understands.

* * *

He does not let entire years go by between visits anymore. He comes to see me in mid-autumn and is so pleased by the ochre of my hair during this season that he stays for longer than he had intended to. He comes again in the winter with a parcel wrapped in paper, and reddens bashfully when I ask him to explain the purpose of the scarf inside. Of course I know what clothing is - he wears it even when he doesn't need to - but pretending to be oblivious makes him flustered and exasperated in turns, and nothing is quite so entertaining.

Seasons slide by. He is different each time he comes, in more than just appearance. There is something there that unshaven stubble or almost indistinguishable changes in the timbre of his voice cannot account for. He becomes calmer, more sure of himself, though the delightful bashfulness does not completely disappear.

Spring wavers on the cusp of summer and by now I can feel the magic of his Apparating even before he manifests. But there is something different, this time, something alien, and he does not appear by my tree like he always has before, but in a clearing down by the brook.

He comes into view and I drop down from the low limbs of my tree, head cocked to the side at the break in tradition. His embrace is solid and steady, but again, there is something different here, too.

"Mel," he says, very gently, "there's - I've brought someone I'd like you to meet."

I try to draw back in shock, but his arms keep me pressed to him. His eyes are pleading. "She's - I didn't bring her close. I knew you wouldn't like that. But she's -" His eyes grow soft in a way I've only ever seen when he is in rapport with the plants he so loves. "I need her to understand. I've tried to explain, but... it's so complicated. And there aren't any words for it, which makes it even harder when words are all you have."

"Understand what?" I can feel her now, though of course not as clearly as I can feel Neville. Still, to be able to sense her at all means she has some level of connection to my forest. It occurs to me that she might be connected through him.

"That you and I aren't - a thing. Lovers. A couple. That I can be your consort and her husband because the two roles don't overlap." He looks frustrated. "And - well, I..." His mouth twists into a half a grimace, half a grin. "I sort of feel like you should approve of her."

I laugh, mostly to cover the twist deep in my stomach at his words. A mate. He's chosen a mate. Humans tend to mate for life, if I recall correctly. "You need me to approve of your mate? Shall I also appraise the dove and the doe to be certain they are worthy of their partners?"

"Don't tease," he says seriously. "I'm more than a dove or a doe to you. We both know that."

I cannot deny it. I feel like sighing and slumping in his arms, resting my head on his broad chest and losing myself in him. I feel like pulling him to the ground and claiming him as though I am still in season and desperate for his attentions.

I do neither. "Bring her, but no closer than seven paces to my tree."

He nods gravely and tightens his arms about me once more, burying his face in my hair and inhaling deeply before letting me go and striding down to the brook.

I scramble back up into my tree, settling in the fork of two branches to watch him bring her.

She is fair-haired, more so than he, and only slightly shorter. She picks her way across the uneven ground hesitantly, with none of the confidence of my consort, but she is not graceless, nor is she timid. As she draws nearer I can sense a strong resolve within her, a determination the reason for which I cannot place. And bubbling beneath her surface is a solid and unwavering affection for the man leading her through the underbrush, so bright and focused it makes me blink.

They stop well back from my tree, and Neville clears his throat. "She's there, in the lower limbs." He points. "She's kind of hard to see - she blends in with her tree, in the summer especially. But her skin's not as rough as the bark - look for something smoother -"

"I see her." Her voice is lower than what I would have imagined, throaty and warm. "Merlin - you never told me how beautiful she is."

There is an undeniable note of jealousy there. Neville tenses. I take a breath and raise my voice so I can be heard. "He tends to keep secrets. He never told me of your beauty, either."

Because she is beautiful, in that imperfect human way. She seems taken aback by my compliment and looks to Neville as though unsure of what to say or do next.

He clears his throat. "Hannah, this is the Hamadryad Melea. This is her forest. Mel, this is my girlfriend Hannah."

"Pleased to meet you," she murmurs almost too softly for me to hear.

"Are you?" I ask pointedly, sliding down from my tree to see her better.

"I - well, I've never meet a Dryad before," she stammers. "So yes. Of course I am. Honoured, even. Especially since you're Neville's - er..."

"He is my consort." I look to him fondly; he looks vaguely ill, as though rethinking whether this was a wise idea.

"Right," she says faintly, and I can see her knuckles whiten as she grips Neville's hand more tightly.

This will not proceed at all if he stays here. "Go," I say to him offhandedly. "You'll know when to come back."

He knows my tone. He doesn't even nod; he simply extracts his hand from Hannah's grip, kisses her lightly on the forehead, and strides off into the brush, leaving me alone with her. Trusting me.

She looks absolutely terrified. I close the distance between us and meet her wide eyes; I almost think I can hear her heart as it thumps out a nervous staccato.

"We do not operate at cross purposes, so long as his happiness is foremost in our minds," I say quietly, with authority. "I have no quarrel with you."

She draws herself up, that solid backbone and determination rallying within her. "You've slept with him. And you still do."

I nod. "Of course. That is what a consort does. And he lies with you, and still does."

"Of course. That's what a boyfriend does." Her eyes are challenging, though still frightened.

"But he loves you. And you love him."

"Yes."

"We do not share that."

Astonishment flits across her face, followed by something that could almost be indignation. "Why not?"

So contrary. Why isn't she pleased that I'm offering no competition for her mate? "Because love is a human attachment." I look down at myself in demonstration. "I am not human. I do not wish to be human. He is my consort because I need him." She seems confused. I cock my head to the side. "Do you know what a Dryad is?"

She licks her lips; it is either a habit she absorbed from Neville or one of her own, but either way, I instantly feel somehow closer to her. "He's tried to explain to me, but - well, words have never been his strong suit."

"They wouldn't be," I murmur softly to myself. "Take my hand," I say, more loudly, to her, holding out my hand. She makes no effort to hide how startled she is, but she does reach out, however hesitantly, and touches her fingers to mine.

I lead her to my tree and, without preamble, touch my hand to the bark.

Her eyes go wide and distant, unfocused, and she draws her breath in sharply as the entire consciousness of the forest filters through her mind for the briefest of instants. For a moment that must stretch like eternity, her skin is the bark of every tree, her heart the centre of every shrub and flower and vine. I drop her hand and she returns to herself, unconsciously backing away a step and gaping at me, eyes wide.

It was, perhaps, unfair. I had not exposed Neville to that until I knew his mind could handle it. But females are always hardier than males when exposed to this knowledge, and as I watched her slowly come back to herself, I knew that though it may take her some time to process all she had experienced, she eventually would.

"I am the forest," I say quietly once her eyes focus on me once more. "A personified projection. An ambassador to the humans who, if left to their own devices, would forget what the forest does for them." I gesture around us. "I must be - human-like. I must speak, I must look human, else humans pay me no mind."

"And that's why you need Neville," she says, barely a whisper.

"A consort is far more than a pleasant diversion," I confirm. "He connects me - my entire race - to the human world. We are all female; we require human males to conceive our daughters. We are inextricably interlinked with humans, and yet apart from them, as we must be." I turn a very serious gaze upon her. "He is mine, in every sense of the word - except the sense in which he is yours." I pause, trying to find the words. "That is the one way in which I will never own him, because I cannot command his heart."

"But he loves you," she whispers, tears standing in her eyes. "I can tell. He loves you in a way I can't even comprehend. In a way that I - I can't even come close to..."

"I know," I sigh wearily. "We have talked of this. Neville is a loving soul. He is incapable of not loving something he is close to." I take one of her hands in mine; she flinches in trepidation. "So imagine the love he will feel for your offspring. Imagine the devotion he has towards you, and will have for the duration of his life. If there is one thing I have learned about his capacity for love, it is that it is bottomless and eternal and a terrifyingly beautiful, inexhaustible power."

She looks down at our linked hands and swallows. "So... you don't love him back."

"He belongs to me," I say bluntly. "By accepting that, he already concedes far more to me than most humans would. That he brings you to me, asking me to approve of you before he -" I stop. She may still be unaware of his intentions. "I am not human, and could never be a mate to him," I say instead. "If I loved him, I would never let him know, because then he would never dare love another."

There is an unspoken language that passes between females, no matter how far removed their respective species may be. Her lips part slightly, as though she wishes to say something, but realises that anything she says will be insufficient. Her thumb slides along the back of my hand as though she wishes to soothe me.

"I'll take good care of him," she promises.

"I have no doubt," I respond, grateful that she doesn't wish to frame this moment with lacklustre words.

"And... I won't stop him coming to you."

I laugh, slightly ruefully. "I don't think you would be able to." This earns the first smile I have seen from her; it looks like the first sunbeam on a cloudy winter day.

* * *

As her tree quickens, I ponder what I shall name my daughter. There is a certain tradition to Dryad names, of course, reaching all the way back to the Greek gods of old, but none of the names I know seem to fit her.

Neville still visits, though sparingly. Once a year is all I can expect, though he will occasionally surprise me with a second visit during the spring.

On one of his visits, he kneels in front of my daughter's tree - with some difficulty, I notice with a pang. He is so familiar with the pain in his knees and back that he doesn't give it any mind any longer, but I know him so well I can feel every stab of pain as though it were my own.

It strikes me that he has changed. His hair, once sandy brown, is shot through with silver. When we first met, his shoulders had not been broad, but they had become so; now they were mere shadows of what they had once been in the prime of his youth.

"What would you name her?" I ask suddenly.

He looks up in surprise. "Me?"

"I cannot think of a good name. I have never had to name a daughter." I lick my lips before I realise what I am doing, and if I was capable of blushing, I just might have.

He gazes upon the tree for a moment. Once I had doubted his ability to sense the Dryad within him; now I have no doubt that he knows her possibly better than I do. "Althaea," he says after a long moment.

The slumbering mind within the trees stirs with excitement at the name, and I do not have to see his small smile to know that he felt it. "It would appear that she approves."

"So it would seem." He rises haltingly, resting his hand upon the bark of the tree as though to draw strength from it. For a moment his eyes slip out of focus as he traces the pattern of the bark. "She's not going to emerge before I die, is she?"

The longing in his heart feels as though it is ripping mine in two. "Not likely."

He sighs, and his hand drops without another word.

"She knows her father - her human father," I say hesitantly. "I did that much." I cannot hold back the chuckle. "She will be like no other Dryad in history, I can tell you that."

His small, sad smile is as much a salve as a stinging poison, because he knows he is not much longer for the world, and I know he wants nothing more than to meet her.

* * *

She is holding a wooden box carved with oak leaves, and she stops exactly seven paces from my tree and waits.

If my appearance startles her as much as hers did me, she doesn't show it as she offers me the box.

I know what is in it. Far away and removed as he was, I still felt his last moments.

"You should keep it," I say after a very long silence, during which my eyes memorise every detail of the box, and of the woman holding it.

Hannah shakes her head. "No. He belonged to you. It seems only right that you should..."

She is overcome by tears, and cannot finish. I draw her to me, the box pressed between us, and the tears of those who loved him drop to the forest floor.

* * *

It takes more and more effort for my tree to push forth leaves in the spring. I feel more sluggish, more inclined to spend my time staring into empty space than slipping through the trees, marvelling at the delights of my realm.

If this hadn't been so important, I likely would not have bothered.

She is the same nut brown of her tree, her hair a thousand shades of verdant green, and - though I know it is impossible - I imagine that her eyes are the precise shape and shade of his.

She sets one trembling, bare foot upon the ground, gazing in wonder as she takes in the sight of her forest – her inheritance - for the first time. The moon is full and paints her forest in stark black shadow and washes of grey and white that shift in the night breeze.

Her eyes lock with mine. "Where is he?"

Her first words break my heart in half. "Follow me."

With effort, she finishes emerging from her tree, unable to suppress a squeal of delight or a flowing, dancing motion as she takes her first steps, following me to the clearing.

Though this forest is dominated by oak trees, he was not an oak. It took some doing - possibly the last of the magic I had left in me - but a maple stands strong and steadfast in the clearing where he first pitched his tent, before he had any notion of what his life would become.

I do not think anyone will ever understand how difficult it is to coax a maple from human ash, with no seeds to work from, but as his branches shift in the gentle music of the wind's nocturne, pride and a swelling contentment bloom within my chest.

"Althaea, this is Neville. Your father, and the best of men."


End file.
